So dear reader, I received voting from most of the readers on the Reads of the Week last week. Thank you so much for voting to keep the long-read suggestions on. I will keep sharing the long articles in that section. Thank you so much for voicing your opinion.
Last week, we discussed why you should not shy away from considering yourself a designer. In the span of a week, you’d have reflected on that idea. And if you’re still on the fence about it, today’s letter would bridge the gap in my communication.
Today, I want to share a technique with you that most design firms use. Mind well, it is not a secret. But it is widely accepted that unless you have a thriving design studio, you shouldn’t bother using this technique.
How stupid!
The technique
It is called Touchpoint Mapping. During the process of design, it is used: whether it is software, a mobile app, a campaign, or a workshop!
The idea is to identify every touchpoint that your customer or a user comes in direct contact with. After identification, each touchpoint is discussed in detail for the planning and further design.
Look at this basic framework.
In the above image, the touchpoints are located on the black line which proceeds from left to right. The touchpoints should be sequenced from left to right in the order of their appearance for a user.
Once the touchpoints are identified, the team moves to the next steps as shown in the image below.
In the further steps, the team discusses each touchpoint in detail and tags with respective teams that need to work on that touchpoint. Also, sometimes, the touchpoints are categorized as pain or gain points to flag if any touchpoint has any difficulties or ease.
Example of an exhibition event
Let’s understand this with a real-life example. We don’t want to take an example that is for the software industry. Hence, the example of organizing (read designing) an exhibition event.
A company is organizing an exhibition event with display stalls and etc.
The following Customer Touchpoint Map tries to identify where the customer would interact before, during, and after the event. I have created a part of the map for the example as it illustrates the point.
If you start from the upper left corner, you will see this:
- The map starts with teams that are involved with their tagging colors
- The ‘before event’ and ‘event day’ phases are demarcated
- On the black touchpoint line, 6 touchpoints are placed
- The customer touches the first touchpoint during ‘Pre-event communication’
- And later, their journey progresses from left to right
‘Pre-event communication’ touchpoint
Let’s focus on the first touchpoint ‘Pre-event communication’ to get a brief idea of what’s happening:
- This is the communication point when the company reaches out to their customer before the event to get their enrollment
- This point is easy and it is marked as a ‘gain’ point with the green star
- The customer interacts either with an email, social media, or a cold call
- Email and social media are the marketing team’s responsibility
- Cold calling is the sales team’s responsibility
We can understand the other touchpoints in the example in a similar fashion.
You can use this basic framework as you find fit.
There’s more to it
Usually, people add many more things to this mapping. Just to provide an idea, here’s a general mix of things that design agencies add:
- User personas
- Research methods: surveys, interviews, usability testing, and analytics
- Pain points, areas of improvement, opportunities for innovation
- Ease of use, clarity of communication, efficiency, effectiveness, emotional impact on users
- Implementation plan, resource allocation, technology requirements, potential challenges
- User Feedback
Tools
You can choose any tool that is comfortable for you. For example:
- Pen and paper
- Whiteboard
- FigJam
- Miro
- Google Sheets
NOW YOU.
Can you find any area in your work to use this technique?
Hit Reply and tell me! I will learn something new that I may not have expected.
Reads of the week:
- This is not exactly a read, but it is worth sharing. If a retreat is THIS WELL organized, even I would like to be a part of it! Watch this fun video on how 37Signals organized this year’s retreat.
- Speak, Memory When her best friend died, she rebuilt him using artificial intelligence.
- Why Uber & Ola drivers cancel trips: Economic analysis I like Nishant’s writing and quick business analysis.
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